Conquer evil men by your gentle kindness, and make zealous men wonder at your goodness. Put the lover of legality to shame by your compassion. With the afflicted be afflicted in mind. Love all men, but keep distant from all men.—St. Isaac of Syria

I dont think he can because there isnt a single dogmatic or ecclesial reason why this kind of iconostasis should be proclaimed a heresy, new age or anything similar. However, chances that f. Giryus will elaborate are slim. In the words of Alf -slim as out of town-

Well, from a historical perspective, the most ancient part of the 'screen' has been utterly done away with: the curtain. It is the one thing that all the ancient churches share, from the Armenians to the Copts to the Orthodox. I was taught that the icon screen arose in front of the more ancient curtain, and eventually the curtain, rather than going wall-to-wall, became an 'element' of the iconostasis (for practical purposes) not unlike how the white undergarment has been reduced to a plastic strip in the modern 'clergy shirt.'

That loss of historical connection, and its connection to the Old Testament, has been severed here in this picture. The continuum has been obliterated, yet to forget the Tabernacle and the Temple means to forget Christ who was present there.

This is a bad habit: to make decisions for ourselves and forget those who have come before us and those who will come afterwards. Removing the curtain means depriving future generations of this as well, and who are we to take away their inheritance.

It is an epidemic. The iconostasis in my parish also has no curtain because of a similar decision (they voted to have it this way so they could 'see better'), but now the children have no idea what a curtain even is. They are losing the concept of having to listen... everything is a 'video.' Because of the design, putting a curtain in means a lot of woodworking will have to be done that will cost money in a time when our roof is falling apart and people are feeling the pinch of the economy. It will take many years to recover from this mistake.

This type of departure from tradition will also cause those who become accustomed to these kinds of innovations to be less likely to be comfortable in other churches. The more innovative a parish is in terms of worship and design, the less likely those 'raised' there will integrate into other parishes if they move. I have run into this countless times, both from immigrants ("It's just not like home.") and from converts ("It's just not like home.").

Standardization means that anyone can come and feel at home. Too often, we have an impulse to make the parish 'our place' to do what we want and forget our connection to the rest of the Church and even the world.

I dont think he can because there isnt a single dogmatic or ecclesial reason why this kind of iconostasis should be proclaimed a heresy, new age or anything similar. However, chances that f. Giryus will elaborate are slim. In the words of Alf -slim as out of town-

Well, from a historical perspective, the most ancient part of the 'screen' has been utterly done away with: the curtain. It is the one thing that all the ancient churches share, from the Armenians to the Copts to the Orthodox. I was taught that the icon screen arose in front of the more ancient curtain, and eventually the curtain, rather than going wall-to-wall, became an 'element' of the iconostasis (for practical purposes) not unlike how the white undergarment has been reduced to a plastic strip in the modern 'clergy shirt.'

That loss of historical connection, and its connection to the Old Testament, has been severed here in this picture. The continuum has been obliterated, yet to forget the Tabernacle and the Temple means to forget Christ who was present there.

This is a bad habit: to make decisions for ourselves and forget those who have come before us and those who will come afterwards. Removing the curtain means depriving future generations of this as well, and who are we to take away their inheritance.

It is an epidemic. The iconostasis in my parish also has no curtain because of a similar decision (they voted to have it this way so they could 'see better'), but now the children have no idea what a curtain even is. They are losing the concept of having to listen... everything is a 'video.' Because of the design, putting a curtain in means a lot of woodworking will have to be done that will cost money in a time when our roof is falling apart and people are feeling the pinch of the economy. It will take many years to recover from this mistake.

This type of departure from tradition will also cause those who become accustomed to these kinds of innovations to be less likely to be comfortable in other churches. The more innovative a parish is in terms of worship and design, the less likely those 'raised' there will integrate into other parishes if they move. I have run into this countless times, both from immigrants ("It's just not like home.") and from converts ("It's just not like home.").

Standardization means that anyone can come and feel at home. Too often, we have an impulse to make the parish 'our place' to do what we want and forget our connection to the rest of the Church and even the world.

Conquer evil men by your gentle kindness, and make zealous men wonder at your goodness. Put the lover of legality to shame by your compassion. With the afflicted be afflicted in mind. Love all men, but keep distant from all men.—St. Isaac of Syria

People used to joing something because they liked it and wanted to be part of it.

Today they join it because they have in mind how they have so much to improve it and make it modern, that is, precisely because they don't like what already exists and want to change it. It's pretty much like getting married not liking much about the person but thinking on how much better the person will be after you're done with him/her in some years. And with more or less the same consequences: either you destroy the person trying to force him/her to be something he/she is not, or you get so dissappointed that you leave.

To tag onto what you'd said, there is another 'reason' for converting: people can use parts of the Tradition to justify their 'pre-existing conditions.' This is fairly common out here.

I always get worried when I start hearing, "Oh, yes, I have always believed that!" They find the Church agreeing with them, rather than the other way around. I try to warn them that for every agreement there will be another or even several disagreements and you will have to make a choice. The problem is that people can become so enamored with what they like (just like dating, I'm afraid) that they forget to examine the 'disagreements.'

Then we have 'selective traditionalism' which I think can be seen in this 'iconostasis.' We like the colorful pictures, but don't like the less colorful stuff that 'blocks the view.' So, away goes part while another stays.

Frankly, I find most of these modern 'reforms' simply in bad taste. There is nothing beautiful about the stick 'iconostasis'. It looks fabricated and cheap. Everywhere I have seen these 'peek-a-boo' things put up, I've seen nothing particularly artistic, create, or even beautiful. Wrought iron is cold and forbidding. Industrialized. Dead. A friend of mine servings in a church with a wrought-iron iconostasis, and it looks more forbidding than a prison fence-line... all in the name of being more 'open.'

People used to joing something because they liked it and wanted to be part of it.

Today they join it because they have in mind how they have so much to improve it and make it modern, that is, precisely because they don't like what already exists and want to change it. It's pretty much like getting married not liking much about the person but thinking on how much better the person will be after you're done with him/her in some years. And with more or less the same consequences: either you destroy the person trying to force him/her to be something he/she is not, or you get so dissappointed that you leave.

Besides, I talk from experience, from seeing far too many people join the Orthodox Church to immediately put themselves up to the job of "modernizing" it, that is, make it fit their own personality. Not everybody, not most, but enough for there existing an entire "trend" that thinks itself "liberal" (not in the political sense necessarily). As a teacher, I know that attitude all too well: people who have not even got past the basics and already think they can discuss with the great minds of the subject and question their wisdom.

Besides, I talk from experience, from seeing far too many people join the Orthodox Church to immediately put themselves up to the job of "modernizing" it, that is, make it fit their own personality. Not everybody, not most, but enough for there existing an entire "trend" that thinks itself "liberal" (not in the political sense necessarily). As a teacher, I know that attitude all too well: people who have not even got past the basics and already think they can discuss with the great minds of the subject and question their wisdom.

To tag onto what you'd said, there is another 'reason' for converting: people can use parts of the Tradition to justify their 'pre-existing conditions.' This is fairly common out here.

I always get worried when I start hearing, "Oh, yes, I have always believed that!" They find the Church agreeing with them, rather than the other way around. I try to warn them that for every agreement there will be another or even several disagreements and you will have to make a choice. The problem is that people can become so enamored with what they like (just like dating, I'm afraid) that they forget to examine the 'disagreements.'

Then we have 'selective traditionalism' which I think can be seen in this 'iconostasis.' We like the colorful pictures, but don't like the less colorful stuff that 'blocks the view.' So, away goes part while another stays.

Frankly, I find most of these modern 'reforms' simply in bad taste. There is nothing beautiful about the stick 'iconostasis'. It looks fabricated and cheap. Everywhere I have seen these 'peek-a-boo' things put up, I've seen nothing particularly artistic, create, or even beautiful. Wrought iron is cold and forbidding. Industrialized. Dead. A friend of mine servings in a church with a wrought-iron iconostasis, and it looks more forbidding than a prison fence-line... all in the name of being more 'open.'

Yuk.

If people are concerned about being able to see what the priest is doing at the altar, why not simply leave a wider space for the beautiful door? I am always surprised at the tendency to squeeze in an unnecessary column or two of additional icons at the expense of the doors.

As one who serves in an Altar with a huge 'gate,' I can tell you that this is a real problem for the clergy actually trying to serve with big doors.

The reason: when opening and closing the doors, the clergy have to move around them. The larger the doors, the more you have to move. I have an 84-year-old deacon who doesn't 'side-step' the way he used to (he is also a bit hard of hearing, so when I've whispered "Open the doors" he will intone "Let us pray to the Lord!"). I'm constantly having to mind him while we swing the doors open or closed, because I don't want him to fall and break something. The solution is that I often have to ignore the Typikon and keep the doors either open or closed more than called for because of all the shifting that has to go on.

The honest truth is that there really isn't that much to see, and there is a great deal more to hear. What has happened with 'visual' parishes is that paying attention to what is being sung often takes second place. Older churches hav stasidi facing in directions where see ing the Altar is impossible. That's because our forebearers understood the importance of listening. These days, I can't give a lecture or a talk without a chalkboard and a handout, because the audio-retention of the Average American is abysmal... and we don't help them listen.

There is something spiritually important about listening, and I think our modern culture experiences a great deal of its loneliness because people no longer listen. Talk to someone who has lost his hearing, and he will tell you how isolating it is. A blind man is not isolated from others the way a deaf man is. Modern technology is making us all feel more isolated and alone in part, I believe, because it is taking away our skills of listening, particularly to one another.

When we come to church, we want to 'see,' so much so that we jamb service books under our noses even when the choir is singing in our own language... and, perhaps even intelligibly! We watch and look, but we don't hear and we listen even less. We can hum a took, but not absorb the words. You may be able to repeat the words, but do you get their implication?

To tag onto what you'd said, there is another 'reason' for converting: people can use parts of the Tradition to justify their 'pre-existing conditions.' This is fairly common out here.

I always get worried when I start hearing, "Oh, yes, I have always believed that!" They find the Church agreeing with them, rather than the other way around. I try to warn them that for every agreement there will be another or even several disagreements and you will have to make a choice. The problem is that people can become so enamored with what they like (just like dating, I'm afraid) that they forget to examine the 'disagreements.'

Then we have 'selective traditionalism' which I think can be seen in this 'iconostasis.' We like the colorful pictures, but don't like the less colorful stuff that 'blocks the view.' So, away goes part while another stays.

Frankly, I find most of these modern 'reforms' simply in bad taste. There is nothing beautiful about the stick 'iconostasis'. It looks fabricated and cheap. Everywhere I have seen these 'peek-a-boo' things put up, I've seen nothing particularly artistic, create, or even beautiful. Wrought iron is cold and forbidding. Industrialized. Dead. A friend of mine servings in a church with a wrought-iron iconostasis, and it looks more forbidding than a prison fence-line... all in the name of being more 'open.'

Yuk.

If people are concerned about being able to see what the priest is doing at the altar, why not simply leave a wider space for the beautiful door? I am always surprised at the tendency to squeeze in an unnecessary column or two of additional icons at the expense of the doors.

People have lost also the sense of mistery. It is covered because there wisdom in not seeing and not knowing some things. We simply cannot bear to not know and in this barbaric impulse we dessacrate everything.

I use to say that we have completely lost the sense of intimacy. Relationships are public -sometimes even visually so - sex is openly discussed in graphic details, "spousal love" instead of an intimate relationship between a man and woman is just friendship (which is a social, "exterior" kind of relationship) with sex involved.

Once people have lost this sense of their own mistery that is intimacy, the sacred, which is the intimacy of God, becomes completely unimaginable, an utter repulsively arbitrary "rule". It is as Jesus said: "If you don't love that which you see, how will you love that that you cannot see?" The same goes for mistery, which in individual lives is what is intimate and in religious life what is sacred: something that even if you are able to see, you must not look towards it, you must not touch it, you must treat it with reverence. In a sense it is an ascetic fasting of experience that opens the nous to a kind of glory the irreverent is completely blind to.

This lust to change everything, to modernize everything, to unite with everyone, to reveal everything has the same roots of our modern promiscuity, this loss of wonder in face of mistery.

Well, from a historical perspective, the most ancient part of the 'screen' has been utterly done away with: the curtain. It is the one thing that all the ancient churches share, from the Armenians to the Copts to the Orthodox. I was taught that the icon screen arose in front of the more ancient curtain, and eventually the curtain, rather than going wall-to-wall, became an 'element' of the iconostasis (for practical purposes) not unlike how the white undergarment has been reduced to a plastic strip in the modern 'clergy shirt.'

That loss of historical connection, and its connection to the Old Testament, has been severed here in this picture. The continuum has been obliterated, yet to forget the Tabernacle and the Temple means to forget Christ who was present there.

This is a bad habit: to make decisions for ourselves and forget those who have come before us and those who will come afterwards. Removing the curtain means depriving future generations of this as well, and who are we to take away their inheritance.

It is an epidemic. The iconostasis in my parish also has no curtain because of a similar decision (they voted to have it this way so they could 'see better'), but now the children have no idea what a curtain even is. They are losing the concept of having to listen... everything is a 'video.' Because of the design, putting a curtain in means a lot of woodworking will have to be done that will cost money in a time when our roof is falling apart and people are feeling the pinch of the economy. It will take many years to recover from this mistake.

This type of departure from tradition will also cause those who become accustomed to these kinds of innovations to be less likely to be comfortable in other churches. The more innovative a parish is in terms of worship and design, the less likely those 'raised' there will integrate into other parishes if they move. I have run into this countless times, both from immigrants ("It's just not like home.") and from converts ("It's just not like home.").

Standardization means that anyone can come and feel at home. Too often, we have an impulse to make the parish 'our place' to do what we want and forget our connection to the rest of the Church and even the world.

To tag onto what you'd said, there is another 'reason' for converting: people can use parts of the Tradition to justify their 'pre-existing conditions.' This is fairly common out here.

I always get worried when I start hearing, "Oh, yes, I have always believed that!" They find the Church agreeing with them, rather than the other way around. I try to warn them that for every agreement there will be another or even several disagreements and you will have to make a choice. The problem is that people can become so enamored with what they like (just like dating, I'm afraid) that they forget to examine the 'disagreements.'

Then we have 'selective traditionalism' which I think can be seen in this 'iconostasis.' We like the colorful pictures, but don't like the less colorful stuff that 'blocks the view.' So, away goes part while another stays.

Frankly, I find most of these modern 'reforms' simply in bad taste. There is nothing beautiful about the stick 'iconostasis'. It looks fabricated and cheap. Everywhere I have seen these 'peek-a-boo' things put up, I've seen nothing particularly artistic, create, or even beautiful. Wrought iron is cold and forbidding. Industrialized. Dead. A friend of mine servings in a church with a wrought-iron iconostasis, and it looks more forbidding than a prison fence-line... all in the name of being more 'open.'

Yuk.

If people are concerned about being able to see what the priest is doing at the altar, why not simply leave a wider space for the beautiful door? I am always surprised at the tendency to squeeze in an unnecessary column or two of additional icons at the expense of the doors.

Or volunteer to assist him during Liturgy. I have only helped a couple of times and was amazed at how much actually goes on I never knew about.

Well, from a historical perspective, the most ancient part of the 'screen' has been utterly done away with: the curtain. It is the one thing that all the ancient churches share, from the Armenians to the Copts to the Orthodox. I was taught that the icon screen arose in front of the more ancient curtain, and eventually the curtain, rather than going wall-to-wall, became an 'element' of the iconostasis (for practical purposes) not unlike how the white undergarment has been reduced to a plastic strip in the modern 'clergy shirt.'

That loss of historical connection, and its connection to the Old Testament, has been severed here in this picture. The continuum has been obliterated, yet to forget the Tabernacle and the Temple means to forget Christ who was present there.

This is a bad habit: to make decisions for ourselves and forget those who have come before us and those who will come afterwards. Removing the curtain means depriving future generations of this as well, and who are we to take away their inheritance.

It is an epidemic. The iconostasis in my parish also has no curtain because of a similar decision (they voted to have it this way so they could 'see better'), but now the children have no idea what a curtain even is. They are losing the concept of having to listen... everything is a 'video.' Because of the design, putting a curtain in means a lot of woodworking will have to be done that will cost money in a time when our roof is falling apart and people are feeling the pinch of the economy. It will take many years to recover from this mistake.

This type of departure from tradition will also cause those who become accustomed to these kinds of innovations to be less likely to be comfortable in other churches. The more innovative a parish is in terms of worship and design, the less likely those 'raised' there will integrate into other parishes if they move. I have run into this countless times, both from immigrants ("It's just not like home.") and from converts ("It's just not like home.").

Standardization means that anyone can come and feel at home. Too often, we have an impulse to make the parish 'our place' to do what we want and forget our connection to the rest of the Church and even the world.

Dear fatherGiryus, the purpose of the altar is not to separate the Holy Communion from the people but to make the Holy Communion closer. In the light of this I think that this –transparent- altar does it functions. 1. shows the place intended for the eucharist and 2. makes it possible for people to be part of the anaphora. This way, christians gathered in the temple are not only the ones who look at and imagine things happening on the other side of the iconostatsis but the ones who actively participate.This iconostasis is unusual but it is also beautiful and maybe, just maybe, it is the best solution between the 2 extremes- the first is an iconostasis which hides the entire altar and the other extreme is – no iconostasis. About the things you said concerning the old testament… I don’t know what to say but- we live in the time of the new testament and it is the time of complete revelation so we should have a complete worship… if you know what I mean